Ep. 1: World War II Ghost Army

By: Carrie Gibson

Length: 29 mins

Publisher's summary

On September 21st 1944, a top secret unit altered the course of World War Two. 101-year-old Gilbert Seltzer, an officer in the "ghost army", tells his story.

©2017 Audible, Ltd. (P)2017 Audible, Ltd.

Great series

I've really enjoyed listening to this series. The events highlighted range from famous to obscure and each is illuminating in its own way about the state of the current world.

Extraordinary story of bravery and creativity

Very impressive story about ingenious tactics and brave execution.
The narration is so vivid that you feel yourself as part of the ghost army.
Maybe not high tech at that time but this army had lots of imagination, creativity and decision to fabricate a "virtual army" and and succeed fooling the enemy . The bravery the army had to risk their lives in the front is amazing.
To keep the secret of this awesome action so many years must have because hard and shows the extreme commitment and patriotism of these secret heroes.

Enjoyable history podcast

I enjoyed listening to this history series while on a car trip with family. Different generations all enjoyed it. It was similar to a history podcast, for people who prefer a podcast style rather than an audiobook..

Fascinating!

This was a fascinating episode. Before listening to this, I had never heard of the Ghost Army. The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, aka Ghost Army, was a 1,100 man unit that pretended to be an armored division of 20,000 troops by deceiving the enemy with sound effects, inflatable tanks, and other fakery. You actually get to hear some of the original sounds that were used to deceive them.

The fact that this Ghost Army is pretty much unknown is very sad because they really helped in the defeat of the Germans. I loved that we got to hear interview clips from Gilbert Seltzer who was an officer in this "ghost army". Also, Gilbert is 101-year-old, still works, and still drives!

Overall, this was a fascinating day in history and I learned so much.

A remarkably shallow series

"Days in living memory"? Let's put aside that 'living memory' is a silly parameter (because it is -- it just allows the author to put interviews in that happen to be available as filler.) I'll just go through these 'carefully selected' chapters, and point out one or two better choices in the same theme -- there are lots of them.

1) A WWII camouflage expert? Really? Not Trinity? Not WWI? 2)Stuxnet? Really? Not the internet worm of 1988? Not "Cockoo's Egg?" 3) The "black power salute of 1968"? Really? Not Selma? Not the civil rights act of 1964? 4) Gulf of Tonkin? Really? Not Dien Ben Phu? 5) The first space walk? Really? Not Yuri Gegarin? Not Sputnik? 6)Cable Street? Really? Not the Siege of Sidney Street? The attack on the Bonus Army? 7) Destroying two buddhas in afghanistan? Really? How about destroying Dresden? Or Hiroshima? 8) Chernobyl? Really? Not Texas City? Not the Johnstown flood? 9) Rivonia? Really? How about James Baldwin's speech "What do Negros Want"? Malcolm X's "Chickens come home to roost" speech? 10) Deep Blue? Really? Not Doug Engbard's 1968 Mouse and Chord Keyboard demonstration? Introduction of the IBM 360? Cray-1?

... anyway, this is a pretty terrible selections of "world changes." I recommend you not waste your time, because it will give you a sound-bite view of history, which is the most "Really?" thing of all.

Great if you can ignore the production

This series is great. It seems well-researched, the topics are interesting, and the episodes appear well-written. Unfortunately, I can't listen to these because the soundtracks - music and sound effects - are set to such a high level that it's very hard to distiguish the words if you have auditory issues. I missed too much while concentrating hard to be able to enjoy or learn anything. This applies to all 3 of the episodes I listened to.